You might think the phrase “CRM automation” is a bit redundant, but apparently it describes CRM systems that automate data entry and analysis. Introhive is one, and just raised a $100 million Series C, bringing total funding to $140 million. The company’s AI can map relationships among contacts at accounts, which coincidentally is a skill that (non-automated?) CRM Salesforce also recently added via Einstein. Can we call it a trend yet?
The founders of just-launched CDP Nessie are certainly on-trend: no-code, small business focus, Google Cloud Platform-based, and an integrated AI-based recommendation engine. Pricing starts around €400 ($480) per month. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason the Belgium-based company founders, who have no obvious connection with Scotland, chose to name their company after the mythical Loch Ness beast.
Location-based marketing is definitely a trend, although not a new one. Uberall, which helps multi-location retailers ensure they are found when people do a local search, just raised $115 million to continue growing. They also bought MomentFeed, which helps similar companies with local social media and customer sentiment analysis.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.